"Lukashenko Can No Longer Escape This Catch-22 Situation."

Inspired by the success of his first ultimatum, Zelenskyy may issue a second and a third.

“The relay stations are not working today,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on the evening of June 24. In doing so, the Ukrainian president made it clear that his ultimatum to Alexander Lukashenko had been at least partially fulfilled.

“Whether they’ve been dismantled or not, to be honest, I don’t know yet. But we’re working on it, and I’m monitoring the situation very closely and receiving daily reports,” Zelenskyy added.

According to his military, the equipment on Belarusian territory—which helped guide Russian drones and which the Ukrainians had threatened to take care of themselves—was shut down as early as June 22.

Thus, the Belarusian government prudently decided it was better not to wait for attacks via relay stations (and perhaps not only via them) from its southern neighbors, who are already reaching as far as the Urals, St. Petersburg, and Moscow with their drones.

“Yeah, the dictator’s on the run!”

Meanwhile, following Lukashenko’s statement yesterday that he was heading off on a long overseas assignment, a mixture of schadenfreude and euphoria began to reign among some of his political opponents. “Yeah,” they say, “the dictator is running away from retribution.” And some are already imagining Minsk falling in just three days thanks to the valiant efforts of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

It’s now becoming clear that Lukashenko is heading to his meeting with Vladimir Putin (and then, likely, to Indonesia) with a relatively clear conscience. Incidentally, these visits were announced in advance, so the theory that he’s jumping ship seems to be nothing more than an illusion. A pleasant illusion for some, but an illusion nonetheless.

Most likely, the ruler has already resolved the situation to some extent through behind-the-scenes dialogue with Kyiv.

Let me remind you that Zelenskyy mentioned the existence of such contacts when he explained that his ultimatum didn’t come out of the blue: “At the intelligence and military levels, Belarus’s leadership received the message: ‘Stop helping the Russians.’

But the persuasion, it seems, didn’t work. As it turned out, the client only understands the language of force.

How did they manage to convince the “big brother”?

This raises the question: how did Lukashenko reach an agreement with the Kremlin to shut down these repeaters? Doing so without asking would probably have been too bold.

One can assume that the junior ally presented Putin with roughly the same arguments that were unexpectedly candidly voiced in the sensational interview with “Al-Arabiya”: “Belarus is very vulnerable militarily if Ukraine starts attacking…” and so on.

Let’s imagine a dialogue with the “big brother” that goes something like this: “Volodya, it won’t just be bad for me, but for you too. If the Mozyr Oil Refinery is destroyed, your own troops will be left without fuel. And you’ll still have to redeploy forces to Belarus—where are you going to get them from?”

Indeed, contrary to the prevailing narrative, opening a Belarusian-Ukrainian front is hardly in Putin’s interest—at least not right now.

He barely has enough cannon fodder for the current slaughter, the economy is in shambles in every sense, and he doesn’t want to announce an unpopular mobilization at least until the September Duma elections.

Lukashenko, speaking about a likely second front stretching over a thousand kilometers, admitted in the same interview with Al-Arabiya: “Given the current course of the war, we and the Russians will not be able to ensure the defense of this sector.”

In other words, there is currently no question of any offensive against Ukraine from the north. According to the Belarusian commander-in-chief, on the contrary, it will not even be possible to defend the area successfully.

As we can see, this is no longer a matter of posturing or threats from “Oreshnik.” Ukrainian intelligence has identified a weakness in the Belarusian leader’s position, and this is paying off.

After all, Lukashenko has always been friendly with Moscow—not in the name of some grand imperial ideal, not because of “spiritual bonds,” but for the sake of cheap resources and to shield his own persona under the empire’s military umbrella.

And since that umbrella is no longer reliable, he has to find a way out—even at the cost of losing face. That’s still better than a drone striking an oil refinery—or even his own residence.

The empire won’t let them off that easily

However, it’s not out of the question that, to save some face, Minsk will make a statement along the lines of: “There weren’t any repeaters there to begin with; it’s all Ukrainian fabrications—information warfare.”

But in any case, Lukashenko won’t be able to escape this catch-22 situation. After all, Zelenskyy, emboldened by the success of his first ultimatum, may issue a second or even a third. “Stop supplying the Russian army with gasoline, microelectronics for their weapons, and so on.” Most likely, this is exactly what the Ukrainian IPSO plan has in mind.

And that’s when Putin will really rear up.

In short, the Belarusian leader is in for an exceptionally difficult conversation with his “big brother.” Now try to break free from the imperial trap you’ve been walking into for so many years.

Alexander Klaskovsky, “Pozir”

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